The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, started the week on a good note with the chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum, Downstream, Rep. Abdullahi Gaya, expressing optimism that rehabilitation of Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) plants would be completed on schedule.
Speaking during an oversight visit of the Committee Members to the refinery, Gaya said the visit was necessitated by the need for the lawmakers to assess first-hand the level and quality of work done so far.
This, he said was to ensure that there was value for money in the execution of the project.
Gaya said that members of the Committee also wanted to ascertain if the work was progressing according to timelines to facilitate timely completion of the project and to check if there was a need for further intervention for the general benefit of the nation.
He said that the committee was excited at the appreciable level of activity going on in the plant, especially when compared to the level of work during the committee’s visit in 2020.
The Committee chairman said that with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) now in force, and the presidential directive for its full implementation within a year, it is expected that the downstream sector would now be independent.
Earlier, the managing director, PHRC, Ahmed Dikko, who took members of the committee on a tour of the plants, said the rehabilitation project was aimed at restoring the plant to a minimum of 90 percent nameplate capacity utilisation.
According to the MD, the scope of the rehabilitation project which will last for 44 months cuts across Process Areas 1, 2, 3 (NPHR) and 5 (OPHR); Power Plant and Utilities; Offsites; Jetty; Wastewater Treatment Plant; Distributed Control System (DCS); Emergency Shut Down (ESD) and Fire & Gas System (FGS); Technical Buildings; Non-Technical Buildings and Pipelines Repairs, etc.
On Health Safety and Environment (HSE) statistics, Dikko said that over 150,000 man-hours have already been achieved on the project with zero lost time injury, zero fatality and zero damage to property.
The Managing Director also informed the lawmakers that the contractor was complying with the provisions of the Nigerian Content Development Act as there was active participation of Nigerian companies as sub-contractors in the project.
Furthermore, he said MoU was signed between the contractor and the Community Leaders to boost the cordial relationship between the company and the host communities, detailing expectations by the communities from the contractor.
Dikko said there was zero unrest so far due to the robust community relation engagement between Owner/Contractor and the host communities.
The PHRC Rehabilitation is in three phases.
The First Phase is the Old Refinery, Area 5 scheduled to be completed in April 2023. The Second Phase is Area 1 and 2 scheduled to be completed in December 2023 and Phase 11 is scheduled to be completed by December 2024.
Meanwhile, NNPC has pledged to increase the supply of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), also known as cooking gas, in order to bring down its price across the country
The group managing director of the NNPC, Mele Kyari, announced this at the inauguration of a 120-metric tons LPG storage and bottling plant by Emadeb Energy Services Limited in Abuja.
He, however, explained that the hike in cooking gas prices is an international issue.
Kyari said the commissioned plant would help to reduce the cost of energy since LPG was cheaper than any other alternative fuel, and stressed that the Federal Government was committed to providing gas for its citizenry.
The managing director/CEO, Emadeb Energy Services, Adebowale Olujimi, urged the government to support LPG investors considering the capital intensive nature of the sector.
In the meantime, the GMD of NNPC, Mele Kyari, has tasked the management of the National Engineering and Technical Company (NETCO) to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the PIA to increase its profitability.
Kyari gave the charge at a two-day Management Retreat organised by NETCO in Lagos with the theme: “Repositioning NETCO for Growth and Profitability in PIA Times”.
He noted that NETCO and other subsidiaries of the NNPC must key into the new mandate of the organisation following the signing of the PIA by President Muhammadu Buhari on August 16, 2021.
The NNPC helmsman said the national oil company has been transformed into a more competitive and commercial entity that would continue to deliver value and dividends to its shareholders.
He said the oil and gas industry was facing huge challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the global energy transition which has reduced investment in the upstream sector.
Kyari, however, noted that the PIA had provided a lot of opportunities to attract investment to the sector which NETCO and other NNPC subsidiaries should take advantage of to increase their profitability.
Also speaking, the Group Executive Director, Downstream of the NNPC and Board Chairman, NETCO, Adeyemi Adetunji, said that the PIA had codified the regulatory, administrative and fiscal framework for the industry.
He said NETCO’s involvement in the NNPC refinery rehabilitation project had put the company on the world map as one of the reputable companies in refinery rehabilitation.
On his part, the managing director of NETCO, Johnson Awoyomi, said the retreat was aimed at brainstorming on how to move the company forward in the PIA era.
Awoyomi noted that to align with the reality of the Act, NETCO would focus on cost optimisation in project execution and expand its business portfolio through diversification into other viable sectors of the oil and gas industry.
He said that the company would also intensify construction management activities, technical collaboration to expand its business frontiers and seek more opportunities outside of NNPC, within Nigeria and overseas.
The MD, who commended the leadership ability of the NNPC GMD, said the declaration of N287 billion profit in 2020 by the corporation was a testimony to the management’s cost-effective initiatives.
The executive director, Operations, Kanayo Odoe and his counterpart, Executive Director, Services, Mr Ahmad Kigo, also spoke about the retreat.
